Zbigniew brzezinski

8. "Aleksei Bogaturov. "Current Relations and Prospects for Interaction Between Russia and the United 
States," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 28, 1996. 
Moreover, China would be the senior partner in any serious Russian effort to jell such an "antihegemonic" 
coalition. Being more populous, more industrious, more innovative, more dynamic, and harboring some 
potential territorial designs on Russia, China would inevitably consign Russia to the status of a junior partner, 
while at the same time lacking the means (and probably any real desire) to help Russia overcome its 
backwardness. Russia would thus become a buffer between an expanding Europe and an expansionist China. 
Finally, some Russian foreign affairs experts continued to entertain the hope that a stalemate in European 
integration, including perhaps internal Western disagreements over the future shape of NATO, might eventually 
create at least tactical opportunities for a Russo-German or a Russo-French flirtation, in either case to the 
detriment of Europe's transatlantic connection with America. This perspective was hardly new, for throughout 
the Cold War, Moscow periodically tried to play either the German or the French card. Nonetheless, it was not 
unreasonable for some of Moscow's geopoliticians to calculate that a stalemate in European affairs could create 
tactical openings that might be exploited to America's disadvantage. 
But that is about all that could thereby be attained: purely tactical options. Neither France nor Germany is 
likely to forsake the American connection. An occasional flirtation, especially with the French, focused on 
some narrow issue, cannot be excluded—but a geopolitical reversal of alliances would have to be preceded by a 
massive upheaval in European affairs, a breakdown in European unification and in transatlantic ties. And even 
then, it is unlikely that the European states would be inclined lo pursue a truly comprehensive geopolitical 
alignment with a disoriented Russia. 
Thus, none of the counteralliance options, in the final analysis, offer a viable alternative. The solution to 
Russia's new geopolitical dilemmas will not be found in counteralliance, nor will it come about through the 
illusion of a coequal strategic partnership with America or in the effort to create some new politically and 

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economically "integrated" structure in the space of the former Soviet Union. All evade the only choice that is in 
fact open to Russia.